they have thanked us for that, thanked us for our concern. they believe they should take the lead on that and we're supporting them. >> let me ask you about afghanistan. it's a little confusing, i think, for americans to understand where we are. it seems there was an afghanistan strategic review. the president made clear he was sending troops. but also, there seems, from a lot of body language, the final troops, secretary gates said it would be a hard sell to send any more troops. now we have a new commander in the field, some talk of perhaps needing more troops, secretary gates said maybe i'm open to it. all this happening against the backdrop of the worst month of u.s. casualties in afghanistan. why are the casualties rising and is sending more troops in these circumstances sending more troops into a black hole? >> the strategic review on afghanistan which set forth an approach that we're following made it clear that we needed to integrate military and civilian assets and try to build up the afghan national army and an afghan police force a